Olympus E-450 Review
Posted on 27. Oct, 2009 by Joel Meadows in Review
Olympus have made their name in consumer electronics thanks to their video cameras and live action cameras. So, in the stills camera market, Olympus is not the first name that would come to mind when picking a Digital SLR. The first thing you notice when unpacking your Olympus 450 compared with say a Nikon D60 or Canon EOS is how much lighter it is than those other manufacturers’ models. So Olympus have designed this with those people who want a decent camera to take on holiday with them but don’t want to exceed their baggage limit on the plane, which is an issue these days. Its body looks quite sporty in design.
So, because it has been conceived as an SLR for the customer who wants an SLR for snapshots and family photos rather than for professional or semi-professional use, it is fairly accessible to pick up and begin using. It has Advanced Shooting Modes and Easy Shooting Modes. The Easy Shooting Modes include an Art Filter, a Portrait setting (making it easier to shooting people), Landscape, Macro, Sport and Night Portrait. Advanced Shooting Modes are Program Shooting (which allows you to shoot using an aperture and shutter speed that the camera sets), Aperture Priority Shooting (which allows you to set the aperture manually), Shutter Priority Shooting (which makes it possible for you to set the shutter speed manually while the camera sets the aperture automatically) and Manual Shooting (where you can set both shutter and aperture yourself). In the Easy Shooting Modes, there are three Art Filters (Pop Art, Soft Focus and Pin Hole). These are here to help the photographer make choices about what he or she is shooting and they are useful for those who have never used an SLR before. The camera’s Face Detection function is also a useful feature as it detect people’s faces in the frame and adjust the focus and metering automatically.
The viewfinder here is a decent size, so it makes it pretty easy for you to get a clear view of what you are shooting when you are shooting it. The Info setting allows you to see how the white balance or exposure compensation is just before you shoot too so you can see a split comparison screen and pick the one that you want. Also, when you switch to Manual Focus, you are able to enlarge the image on the display so you can get a closer look at what you are shooting. The camera also allows you the option of Panorama Shooting, so you can join a number of different images of the same place together. The Noise Reduction feature is quite efficient and allows you to cut out that horrible grain that you sometimes get in poor light. The only drawback is that it does extend the amount of time it normally takes to shoot a photo. The Olympus E-450 is a fast camera and the time it takes from appearing in the viewfinder is very quick.
It does quite rich things with landscapes, like the tree I shot locally up on a hill and it is pretty intuitive when you’re shooting fine detail and close-up like architecture. Sometimes it can oversaturate blues but to be fair, I didn’t have any filters on the lens that it was provided with, a 14 to 42mm, so if you added a polarising filter, it may help. It can be quite sharp when you’re shooting buildings and it isn’t as sympathetic towards them as say a Nikon. But it does cope with shooting into direct sunlight reasonably decently. Its portrait setting, which I used to shoot a London walks guide, works well and it compensated for the outdoor setting (the grounds of Hever Castle in Kent), creating a shot that is one step beyond a family snapshot. Speaking of portraits, the camera has an invaluable Red-eye reduction flash, which emits a series of pre-flashes before the regular flash fires, which acclimatises the subject to the flash, minimising the red-eye. The camera also allows you to alter the intensity of the flash, which is also a useful function. It will also allow you to customise your camera to make it easier to use. Print reservation makes it easy for you to keep the date/ time information on the memory card with the photos you’ve taken.
The camera also deals decently with low light and its lightness is an advantage on a tripod as it balances well. It also shoots well with the flash off in places when you don’t want to use it or aren’t allowed to use it. As a minor quibble, the menus are shown in this digitised type which makes them look like an Eighties computer, which is mildly annoying but this is a pretty minor criticism.
So that’s the Olympus E-450. As a bridge between a compact and a snazzier SLR, it’s a decent camera. Its weight is definitely an advantage if you were planning to take an SLR on holiday with you and you were concerned about overloading yourself with something bulky on a plane. It isn’t as sophisticated or as intuitive as a Nikon or a Canon but it is accessible for someone who hasn’t used an SLR before. Its design is decent enough and the large viewfinder is advantageous. So if you’re looking for a camera to shoot holiday snaps or family pictures and want something packing a little more oomph than your compact, then you could do worse than grab the E-450. But if you are looking to move into the semipro level, then this camera isn’t really suitable. With a retail price of around £400, it’s not bad value at all. Olympus may never lead the digital SLR market but they’ll certainly give other manufacturers something to think about.
See all of our test shots for the E-450 Review
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Review: Nikon D60 Digital SLR
Posted on 31. Aug, 2009 by Joel Meadows in Review
The Nikon D60 is an entry-level Digital SLR from Nikon, replacing the D40 and D40x models. At 10.2MP with an Image Sensor Cleaning System, Nikon have improved on its predecessor as what you aren’t told as a consumer when upgrading from a compact to a Digital SLR is the dust on the sensor that will play havoc with some of your best shots. So the Sensor Cleaner is a fantastic feature, although it could be argued that you can fix dust on your shots in Photoshop, Aperture or iPhoto, something that is true, but this saves you having to go through the whole process of doing this.
The D60 is quite an easy camera to pick up and start using even if you haven’t used an SLR before because its Modes dial uses many of the modes that you would find on a Nikon compact camera: Auto, Auto (Flash Off), Portrait, Landscape, Child, Sports, Close up and Night Portrait. For example, Landscape comes in useful for vibrant landscape photos as the camera picks the focus point containing the closest main subject while the built-in flash and AF-assist illuminator turn off automatically. These features make life easier and make some of the choices for you. Setting it to the M mode on the dial allows you to control both the shutter speed and aperture, so you’ll be able to shoot fireworks and stars. It has a Panoramic mode which works well with a wide angle lens. The S Mode (shutter priority mode) means that you can choose the shutter speed while the camera automatically selects the aperture that will produce the optimal exposure. If you pick the A mode (Aperture-Priority Mode), you choose the aperture while the camera automatically selects the shutter speed to produce the optimal exposure. Setting small apertures (high f-numbers) increase depth of field, bringing both the main subject and background into focus. Another feature is Active D-Lighting, which will improve photos that you shoot outdoors or in high contrast situations. Also, because it doesn’t have a motor in it, it’s pretty light and portable and can easily be stowed in a camera bag or a back pack without too much of a strain on your shoulders. You can carry it in your hands without a battery grip and it’s not hard to handle, although a battery grip is available. So, unlike the old days, when an SLR meant you were adding pounds to what you carried with you, the D60 is feels like it’s got a lot packed into it. It does sit quite well on a tripod too, if you wanted to achieve something a little more ambitious, with its weight an advantage here.
It’s also pretty good in low light and you can achieve some nice subdued effects when you shoot with the flash off. For example, when shooting the Tim Burton portrait below at San Diego Comic Con, that was taken indoors with slightly sharp light but the D60 with the flash turned off compensated nicely for the poor light.
Also, when I took the photo below of geese on the river at Kingston Upon Thames, it compensated for the high sunlight. I used the D60 with two different lenses: the 18-55mm, which it comes with, and a bigger wide angle 18-105mm Nikkor lens.
I also added a Skylight polarising filter to improve shooting in sunlight and to enhance general shooting. The body accommodates the two lenses well and their addition doesn’t make the camera unwieldy and it remains portable. In fact, for taking your camera abroad to shoot away from home, the D60 is a perfect model. The 18-55 lens that it comes with has VR (Vibration Reduction), which is a godsend when shooting in low light and stabilises the image, making those blurry, out of focus shots almost a complete thing of the past. I even tried it with my monster 70-300mm Sigma lens and it accommodated that without too much of a problem.
The D60 also allows you to shoot in black and white but only with a lens that has manual focus. It is an efficient portrait camera too because it picks detail out very delicately and for that reason, it is also a good buy if you shoot a lot of architecture. As with all SLRs, it allows you to shoot in RAW, if you need to photograph very large images for posters for example and want to take shots that are uncompressed. The Fine JPG setting is suitable for photos that don’t have to be printed in large format and you can shoot portraits that are good enough to reproduce at A4 size.
In terms of its price, it is competitively priced at just above the £400 mark, which is impressive considering that its predecessor, the Nikon D40x cost about the same when it was launched but the D60 is a more intuitive and sophisticated piece of kit. Nikon cameras are also very Mac friendly and transferring shots from your camera to your preferred application on your computer is a reasonably quick process. Also, unlike the D40x, you don’t have to eject it from iPhoto: just unhook the USB lead and you’re done.
So if you are looking for a good entry level SLR or if you are looking to upgrade from a very basic SLR to the next level, the D60 is a good choice. It takes sympathetic architecture shots, it is fairly easy to master and it does handle portraits with little fuss. It also works very well with the Mac, if this is your computer of choice. If you are moving from family snapshots to something semi-professional too, then this is a sound investment for you. It fills your shots with warm blues and vibrant reds and helps bring a city that you’ve shot on the D60 to life. Digital SLRs used to be accused of taking photos that lacked the immediacy and the human touch of their film predecessors but I think that Nikon have moved some way towards giving Digital SLRs the gritty feel of film. The D60 is a recommended piece of kit for anyone wanting to switch from the holiday pics to something with more power and sophistication.
Test Shots
See all test shots taken for this review
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